Misleading Movie Trailers

Eudoxia · Nov 2, 2010

I honestly hate it when I see a movie trailer on television and it looks really amazing, but when I go to see it in theaters I just wasted $10 on a really crappy movie. For instance, Bridge to Terabithia. When I first saw the trailer, I thought maybe this was going to be a magical adventure like Narnia with these two kids as the main characters. Instead I get two unhappy kids that have an extreme imagination and they briefly imagine their life in an alternate world.

Same thing happened with Sweeney Todd. Trailer Impression: Gothic tale of revenge where Johnny Depp plays a barber who sings in a dream sequence. Sounded like a good movie to me.
Movie Impression: Gothic tale of revenge where Johnny Depp plays a barber and does nothing but sing and kill. Seriously. There are a few brief moments of ACTUAL talking before he just goes back to singing. I was nearly ripping my hair out in frustration at the money I wasted.

There are plenty more other movie trailers out there that looked cool, but the movie was a piece of crap. If this isn't already clear enough, movie trailers lie to you. Save your money people.

Zoombie · Nov 2, 2010

And sometimes they don't. Inception presented a film that was basically Psychonaughts meets Dark City. SO when I watched it...and got Psychonaughts meets Dark City, I was pretty satisfied.

Or how about Iron Man's trailer! That promised a rocking good time with Robert Downy Jr...and that's just what it was.

Really, I can't think of many trailers I've seen that have been THAT misleading, beyond Sweene Todd annnnnnddd Jarheads. Jarheads was not what I thought it'd be from the trailer at all.

<shrugs>

It happens. Think of it as a continual struggle between prey and predator. You didn't lose money! You're evolving more effective defense mechanisms!

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2010

Eudoxia said:
Same thing happened with Sweeney Todd. Trailer Impression: Gothic tale of revenge where Johnny Depp plays a barber who sings in a dream sequence. Sounded like a good movie to me.
Movie Impression: Gothic tale of revenge where Johnny Depp plays a barber and does nothing but sing and kill. Seriously. There are a few brief moments of ACTUAL talking before he just goes back to singing. I was nearly ripping my hair out in frustration at the money I wasted.

Um... the musical has been around for a while now. I don't think the trailer was misleading. I think you didn't understand what kind of story and musical it was.

My gripe: NEVER LET ME GO. The trailer made it look like some sweeping romantic drama a la Atonement. Yes, I've read the book and expected something grand. The movie was dull, dreary, and slow. And not very sweeping or romantic.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps... Don't even get me started on this one. The trailer makes it sound like Michael Douglas and Shia Lebeouf are both protagonists and they were together in something. The real story turned out to be NOTHING of that sort. Michael Douglas wasn't even a major character.

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2010

Zoombie said:
And sometimes they don't. Inception presented a film that was basically Psychonaughts meets Dark City. SO when I watched it...and got Psychonaughts meets Dark City, I was pretty satisfied.

Or how about Iron Man's trailer! That promised a rocking good time with Robert Downy Jr...and that's just what it was.

By and large most trailers do their job well. I don't actually mind if they hyped the movie too much -- it's their job. I also don't mind if the trailer is vague -- as long as it entices me to go see the movie. What I mind is if they tell me the story and plot twists. PLEASE, at least that saves me from going if I already know the whole plot! Also, if the trailer says one thing, and the movie turns out to be something completely different. It doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes it does.

Zoombie · Nov 2, 2010

Oh man, Dark City's trailer was vague as hell, and I made me really really want to watch the film.

I too also hate it when the movie is in the trailer. See Charlie St. Cloud.

Ugh. That trailer gave me diabetes just watching it.

Calla Lily · Nov 2, 2010

Zoombie, Charlie St. Cloud was exactly the movie I thought of too! Gack.

Kitty Pryde · Nov 2, 2010

When I first saw the Bridge To Terabithia trailer, I thought to myself, whoa, seems like they took out all the misery and tragic death and mourning, and made a film out of the ten upbeat pages of the novel! But no, and thousands of traumatized small children can attest to the terrible job they did marketing that movie.

maestrowork · Nov 2, 2010

And speaking of traumatized children.... What about The Last Airbender...

And Where the Wild Things Are. I heard some children say they were going to slit their wrists after seeing that movie...

Calla Lily · Nov 2, 2010

Remember Jim Carrey's The Mask? I think it was rated PG-13. In the climactic scene, where the bad guy puts on the mask and turns into super-scary bad guy, a small child (~3 years old) down in front started shrieking. The parents let it shriek for a century (2 minutes, maybe) till they apparently decided that it shold be taken away from the HUGE FREAKY SCARY MONSTER on the screen.

And the trailer was all about cute, cartoony Jim Carrey.

Stlight · Nov 2, 2010

But but the book Where the Wild Things Are was so good.

Guess it was just as well we missed that movie. sigh.

veinglory · Nov 2, 2010

I loved the movie 'Hereafter' but it is not at all what I expected based on the trailers. Instead of dark/actiony/paranormal it is literary, braided storyline with upbeat tone.

Toothpaste · Nov 2, 2010

I find the OP's post quite amusing in that those are two very famous works that when I saw the trailers for them I was very concerned the directors had ruined the original spirit by changing them into what I saw in the trailers, but I was much relieved to see the films and learn that they were quite decent adaptations of the source material. Clearly the OP and I had the totally opposite experiences. I also remember telling people with BRIDGE "That movie isn't fantastical, that's going to confuse people" and with SWEENEY "It's funny how they are glossing over the fact that this is a musical, almost an opera, that's going to shock some people" and lo and behold . . .the OP proves me right.

I'm sad you didn't enjoy the films as I think they are great interpretations of the original material which are wonderful works of art (the original BRIDGE book and SWEENEY play), but I can see why you were surprised

.

Mac H. · Nov 2, 2010

Eudoxia said:
Same thing happened with Sweeney Todd. Trailer Impression: Gothic tale of revenge where Johnny Depp plays a barber who sings in a dream sequence. Sounded like a good movie to me.

The trailer showed Johnny Depp singing in a gothic tale of revenge.

And the reality? The film was a gothic tale of revenge .. a musical. What more could they have done in the trailer to satisfy you? Put a big label on it: WARNING - MUSICAL ?

It was an adaptation of a very famous stage musical with the same name ! It would be like seeing a trailer for a film version of 'CATS' and then being disappointed that the film wasn't a documentary about 'Felis catus'.

Remember that for most movie-goers the trailers are only one part of the advertising they'll see - others include posters, reviews websites etc.

This has been used to good effect in deliberately misleading trailers - one trailer for the thriller 'Red Eye' was in the style of a romance ... up until the last 5 seconds of the trailer when it suddenly revealed itself to be a thriller ... it was very well done.

But yeah - there are some bad ones. There was one a while ago that looked like an 'inspirational teacher' movie like a 'Mr Chips' or 'Dead Poets Society'... but was actually about a paedophile teacher who was preying on his students.

I can't remember the name of it.

Mac

Calla Lily · Nov 2, 2010

I've gotten into the habit of checking imdb when I see a trailer. They at least have a paragraph summary. For example, that new Disney movie that's out--the Rapunzel-sorta-maybe movie? We couldn't get a handle on the actual plot from the clever but disjointed trailer. imdb cleared that up.

I'm sorry to see that Hereafter isn't a paranormal. It looks like a six handkerchief film--which I avoid like the plague--but I would've risked that for a good paranormal.

darkprincealain · Nov 2, 2010

The one that made me unable to function--though I loved the movie--was Volver. It seems like a silly, fun comedy from the trailer. It isn't nearly as sunny as the trailer makes out. Loved it, but not what I thought I was in for.

Eudoxia · Nov 2, 2010

Mac H. said:
The trailer showed Johnny Depp singing in a gothic tale of revenge.

And the reality? The film was a gothic tale of revenge .. a musical. What more could they have done in the trailer to satisfy you? Put a big label on it: WARNING - MUSICAL ?

It was an adaptation of a very famous stage musical with the same name ! It would be like seeing a trailer for a film version of 'CATS' and then being disappointed that the film wasn't a documentary about 'Felis catus'.

Remember that for most movie-goers the trailers are only one part of the advertising they'll see - others include posters, reviews websites etc.

This has been used to good effect in deliberately misleading trailers - one trailer for the thriller 'Red Eye' was in the style of a romance ... up until the last 5 seconds of the trailer when it suddenly revealed itself to be a thriller ... it was very well done.

But yeah - there are some bad ones. There was one a while ago that looked like an 'inspirational teacher' movie like a 'Mr Chips' or 'Dead Poets Society'... but was actually about a paedophile teacher who was preying on his students.

I can't remember the name of it.

Mac

The trailer only showed one scene of him singing in the streets. A lot of other trailer movies have people singing in it. Like a mother singing a lullaby to her baby child. I never heard that Sweeney Todd was derived from a musical. I never bothered to research that when I saw a trailer of Johnny Depp singing in the street. I don't believe that they should put a label saying that this is a musical. Some trailers say that a certain movie was made from a "True Story" in between showings of scenes from the film. I guess I'm just a bit used to being told what kind of film it's going to be from the trailer. A small scene of him singing to people about revenge in a little dream sequence doesn't tell me much. I guess it all mostly depends on the viewers already known knowledge about the film. Whether it's a remake or derived from a musical. People who aren't really into musicals may not have known that this movie derived from one.

Eudoxia · Nov 2, 2010

I don't usually do a lot of research on the trailers I see. A lot of different people make their reviews on it. Just like books. Some people may rate it a 5 or 4 star where as a few people who didn't enjoy the story may have rated it a 2 or 3 star. I started doing some research, but it didn't help me much. Especially with Daybreakers. Which, in my opinion, was a pretty ok movie. I never got a lot of information out of it. I'll have to give IMDB a try the next time I want to learn the plot-line of a movie. That would've been really useful when I went to see Clash of the Titans 2010 remake. The plot was completely changed which just displeased me.

Calla Lily · Nov 2, 2010

That's all I use it for, Eudoxia--basic plot information. I don't want to waste $8.

Jcomp · Nov 3, 2010

In defense of the Sweeney Todd complaint, I knew lots of people who were unfamiliar with the play and who didn't understand that the movie was a musical.

As for a misleading trailer. The Village. The Village The Village The Village. Audiences were sold on a horror that didn't exist.

MissMacchiato · Nov 3, 2010

I agree that the Bridge to T was misleading, I'd read the book, found it deeply depressing, and seriously wondered whether I'd imagined reading the book at all after I saw the trailer.

I think the worst one I've experienced was 2 weeks notice. It's supposed to be a fluffy romantic comedy (and it was) but half of the trailer wasn't actually in the movie. And it was funnier than the stuff they left in.

I was so annoyed about that, since if the best part of the movie is in the trailer, it was grossly misleading to cut almost ALL the scenes that were in it from the movie.

Lyra Jean · Nov 3, 2010

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who was misled by Terabithia. I threw something at the television I was so pissed off.

veinglory · Nov 3, 2010

callalily61 said:
I'm sorry to see that Hereafter isn't a paranormal. It looks like a six handkerchief film--which I avoid like the plague--but I would've risked that for a good paranormal.

There is a strong paranormal element, it just isn't a genre-paranormal/horror/fantasy overall. And I doubt anyone in the audience cried at all. Some sad things happen but not in a melodramatic way. It's a good movie.

veinglory · Nov 3, 2010

Jcomp said:
As for a misleading trailer. The Village. The Village The Village The Village. Audiences were sold on a horror that didn't exist.

I thought the trailers for that were good. The twist was rather the point?

randywrite · Nov 3, 2010

I had the idea for a solution to this problem: I was going to start a website dedicated to people who've watched movie trailers and thought the movie would be great, but then found out that it wasn't.

The Website: www.burnedbythetrailer.com

There you could find a list of misleading trailers..........................
My 2 cents

Jcomp · Nov 3, 2010

veinglory said:
I thought the trailers for that were good. The twist was rather the point?

The movie abandons any semblance of "horror" well before the final twist. Even if the first "twist" is partly the point and it was effective for some people, it was still a blatantly misleading advertising campaign.

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